Running for cover

Dec 19th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

The work of Hwang Woo-suk, a stem-cell pioneer and a hero in his native South Korea, has been called into doubt

KOREANS are sometimes accused of suffering from a “bali, bali” or “quick, quick” complex; of sacrificing quality and thoroughness to speed and a driving desire to achieve. In Hwang Woo-suk, heralded as the world’s leading stem-cell researcher, this trait has resulted in, at best, sloppy science; at worst audacious fraud.

Dr Hwang, of Seoul National University, made headlines earlier this year when he published a paper in which he claimed to have derived lines of stem cells from cloned human embryos. Stem cells have not undergone the epigenetic modification that tells them to specialise, and can thus turn into any cell type. Dr Hwang’s paper, published by Science in June, seemed such an achievement because it was the first to show that, in many diseases, patients might in principle be treated using cells containing their own DNA. Such treatments would, the idea goes, avoid rejection by the patient’s immune system since they would not be recognised as “foreign”.

Rumours that the results were false have been circulating for weeks. A South Korean television station investigated the allegations, but the resulting programme was initially withheld from broadcast because of the strength of public support for Dr Hwang. Suspicions were fuelled still further by the appearance of anonymous blogs on a website frequented by young South Korean scientists. These questioned the authenticity of some of the pictures contained in the seminal paper—in particular, the DNA fingerprint analyses used to verify the results of the experiments. The DNA fingerprints from some of the cell lines appeared to match the patients’ cells too perfectly and could therefore be duplicates, rather than having come from separate experiments.

Sauve qui peut

After learning of these concerns, the paper’s second author, Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, asked for his name to be removed from it. A couple of days later, on December 15th, another co-author, Roh Sung-il, claimed Dr Hwang had admitted falsifying data on nine of the 11 stem-cell lines that formed the basis of his findings. Despite being on the list of authors, Dr Roh, who is the head of the MizMedi Women’s Hospital, an infertility clinic in Seoul, and who had collaborated with Dr Hwang in the past, said he was not aware of the paper until after it had been published. He added that, because of concerns that someone might steal their scoop, it had been written by Dr Hwang and Dr Schatten only.

In a televised press conference on December 16th, Dr Hwang responded by denying the accusations vehemently. However, he did acknowledge fatal flaws in the paper and asked for it to be withdrawn, something Science will do if all 25 co-authors agree. He also offered his own interpretation of the too-perfect results: that the stem cells were somehow mismanaged, or possibly switched. He conceded that there were only eight cell lines when he offered the paper for review, but said his team created three more lines later.

The presence of the duplicated photos is more difficult to explain. Initially, Dr Hwang presented this as an administrative mistake. However, a junior researcher on the project, Kim Sun-jong, has said his boss ordered him to manipulate photos of two stem-cell lines and present them as 11 separate colonies.

The case has created a sensation in South Korea, where Dr Hwang had been celebrated as a national hero for his achievements in human and animal cloning. These achievements are now coming under scrutiny. Indeed, an earlier paper which announced that Dr Hwang had cloned human embryonic stem cells, published in Science in 2004, is already under attack. The same website that carried details of problems with the 2005 paper is now reporting that a photograph in the 2004 paper is identical to that of a human embryonic stem cell made by the MizMedi hospital and submitted to another journal.

Controversy is also brewing over the culpability of the government. At the centre of the storm is the presidential adviser for science and technology, Park Ky-young, a molecular biologist who was a co-author of Dr Hwang’s paper in 2004. The South Korean government has put more than 26 billion won ($26m) into Dr Hwang’s research, and is now being blamed for not keeping a closer eye on its protégé.

The bali, bali attitude has surfaced in South Korean science more than once in recent years. In November 2004 the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed serious concern that some of the country’s scientists had conducted experiments to enrich tiny amounts of uranium. They did so without the knowledge and consent of anyone other than the head of the laboratory where the work was done. And, just last month, Dr Hwang admitted, after more than a year of denial, that he had violated international ethics guidelines by using eggs from two female scientists who worked in his laboratory.

Seoul National University and the University of Pittsburgh are now investigating Dr Hwang’s work. He has said he will prove the authenticity of his findings by thawing five remaining frozen stem-cell lines, a procedure he estimates will take around ten days. The schedule could prove tight. Given the weight of the accusations, and despite the Korean temperament that favours quick results, now would be an ideal opportunity to practise patience.

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